Favorite cookbooks, pasta, Southern baking, LA’s best restaurants

‘Tis the season for Good Food’s annual roundup of cookbooks. Celia Sack of Omnivore Books in San Francisco shares her recommendations for the bakers, vegans, and jammers on your list. One of her favorite comfort food how-to’s over the last year is Missy Robbins’ book about pasta, which she says is the only book one needs on the subject. For anyone in LA who wants homemade lasagna and focaccia straight from the oven, head to Ceci’s in Silver Lake, where Francesco Lucatorto and Francesca Pistoria are making traditional favorites from Genoa and are the subjects of this week’s “In the Weeds.” Regional baking is perhaps nowhere as pronounced in the United States than the South, and pastry chef Cheryl Day is paying homage to her ancestors’ ovens. Pomegranates are having their moment at the farmer’s market just in time to celebrate the winter solstice. Finally, LA Times restaurant critic Bill Addison announces his picks for the best restaurants in the city.